Yes, I know the title of this posting dates me, but it was the best I could think of.

This entire week here in Brisbane is a celebration of the river. This annual celebration is called River Festival. The biggest part of this festival, at least if you count participants, is the Riverfire last Saturday night. This is a city-wide fireworks display.

For those of you familiar with the Commencement Bay WA and Portland OR firework on 4th of July. Try to imagine 6 of those displays going off at the same time, synchronized. Add a bridge covered in fireworks, and to finish the whole thing of a fighter plane flying low over the river dumping burning jet fuel in a stream behind it. It was a very extravagant affair. Tanking pictures of fire works and jet planes is not my strong side. So I have only posted one picture looking aft out of the cockpit at downtown and one of the bridges. You can see many more photos at this link. Not all from this year, but it looks just the same. RiverFire

It turns out that the pile moorings we are at these days are the best spot in town to watch this. The banks of the river along the botanical garden were packed with 1000's of spectators. The river was packed with 100's of boats. Some people arrived 24-hours in advance setting up camp on blankets and dropping anchor.

I had friends from s/y Halfskip over for a Papeete favorite of ours. Rump steak and pom frits with rockford sauce. It was a fun evening.

Sunday morning had another Brisbane tradition planned. The Goodwill Bridge, which is the walking bridge from Brisbane City over the river to South Bank, was the site of the RiverBBQ. This is a free BBQ breakfast, served on the bridge. This event was in one way more amazing to me than the fireworks the night before. As I walked onto the bridge I could see that the lines for the BBQ were 200 people long. -The BBQ breakfast was a hotdog wrapped in a piece of toast bread.

So, some of you may be thinking. "He hasn't posted anything for a month and once of a sudden he writes 349 words just because he saw some fireworks".
Well, it is pouring down rain, and has been all day.